Wednesday, February 26, 2014

Angel Story Ideas

I’m being chased by a police officer, who is shooting after me rather haphazardly. He’s trying to kill me, though I hold no weapon and there are innocents bystanding about. I flee into the police station, trying to get some help from the psycho cop. I burst in with my arms up and empty to the front desk yelling “I’m being attacked by a maniac!” The lady behind the desk looks startled for the moment before the cop follows me inside. I turn to him as he speaks, deep and echoing, “He’s a demon.”
The female cop’s eyes change as her face otherwise goes slack. Becoming sunken, they take on a yellow, almost-gold, color. I sigh as her face changes and she starts to stand. The pursuing police officer starts to raise his gun as I take a solemn pose. I take a similar stance as a manservant might, with my feet together. My right hand clasps lightly as if to grip something and is placed upon my stomach. The slightly bent fingers of my left hand rest on my back, palm out. I bend at the waist in a bow, and hear the click of the pistol crying its emptiness. The woman has just reached the weapon at her side as a white flame covers my body.
In a white flash I return, to an outside viewer, covered in armor, carrying a sword and shield. Still in the bowed position, the sword extends out of my right hand while the shield is grasped in my left behind my back. I stand quickly and immediately sheath the blade. I spin to backhand the being in the woman’s body before she finishes leveling her gun. I knock it out of her hand and her to the ground as my shield is brought up between the first officer and I as I complete the turn.
I turn to face him just as a glowing blade swings at me. I swear as I move the shield out of the way before contact can be made and sidestep just barely in time. The blade cuts deeply into the floor as the officer misses me. I quickly bash the man in the head with my shield sending him staggering away. He has not dropped the weapon. I keep my ears open and hope that the filter keeps normal police from observing the fight. I close on the man and slam him into the notice board on the wall so his weapon arm is pinned.
“A holy weapon, huh? Those’ll cut through pretty much anything. ‘Course, if you’re the one wielding it and I’m winning, I’m guessing this region wasn’t issued any others than that one. If you didn’t just find it in the street. Can you guess why its holy light didn’t frighten me?”
I slam his head against the cork, shaking papers and thumbtacks loose. I whisper into his ear, “I. Am. Not. A demon.”
(Holy light will frighten lesser demons and some of the bigger ones. Creatures of evil tend to be wary as well. Spells they use tend to be less effective in the light of a holy weapon.)
And with one more smashing of his head he crumples, unconscious. I turn and walk to the just recovering second cop.
“You must still be in training if you took that hit that hard. Got a pen?” I take the one from her shirt before knocking her out with the shield face. Taking one of the fallen papers from the notice board I scribble a quick message on it. I lift the sheet over my head, looking directly into the camera pointed at me. Then I take it into the small public restroom near me and after hiding it, I change back into street clothes, mimicking the position I held earlier.
I walk out, leaving the unconscious police to be found after I’m gone.
“I hate immortals.”

So angels come in a hierarchy, with four levels. Cherubs are the weakest, and don’t fight at all. They’re manipulators. Cupid is a Cherub, he manipulates relationships. Generally though, he won’t do it unless the outcome helps things on a bigger scale. Because of the scarcity of the need for them, Cherubs are the fewest in number. And since manipulation is often seen as a sort of nasty thing to do, the only people who ascend to become Cherubs are those who do it with purity and benevolence in their hearts.
Then there are Guardian Angels. They take positions in society as regular people, but often in places that they can protect the average person. You’ll find a lot of Guardians in police work. Some in military, some as teachers, or guides for social services. They protect people and are decent fighters. Taking up police work allows them mortal weapons, which allow them to blend in and fight on mortal terms, though a few do have holy weapons. Guardians are not terribly bright once they’ve made a decision on if something is a threat. If they deem it as a supernatural threat, they may not stop until it’s dead or destroyed, which was my problem in the above conflict.
Angels are next. This is the standard angel, though they are stronger than the previous two. I myself would never think of fighting more than two, at maximum. They’re fast, powerful, and regenerate quickly. They can be killed, but only with certain types of weapons, nothing I carry on me. I would never use my blade on a Guardian, but with Angels, it’s rather necessary to defend myself. Injuring them is the only way to slow them down. Their rate of regeneration is so great, I don’t feel too bad about lopping off a wing or a leg. They’ll be back to good within a minute.
I don’t like fighting angels, of any kind. Ultimately, they fight for good, and I’m also a strong supporter of Good. But every now and then angels will be convinced I am or harbor evil, and attack me. As in the story above, I put my sword away when fighting Guardians, because they take up normal positions in society, and I actually have a chance of killing them. I’m just a better fighter than the majority at their level. I don’t want to leave the corpses of cops behind which will turn on the manhunt for me, and as I said before, they really do fight for good, and I’m not going to oppose that by killing them. Capital A Angels are much better fighters, don’t take up positions in society, and are trained to hunt and kill demons. I can match some one-on-one and fight to a standstill. Two is pushing my limits, and I have to fight at the top of my game in order to survive. If more than two appeared to oppose me, I’d immediately give up. I’m just not that good.
Now, for the last tier of angels, I don’t know a whole lot about them. You don’t run into them often, usually only as a last words kind of meeting. Archangels are death. Very few can stand up to even one of them, and those few are usually other Archangels dueling, or powerful Demonlords. Archangels are reality warpers. If they want to decide your lungs are pudding, there’s not much you can do about that. They supposedly almost never pull out actually weapons, relying on their warping abilities. But even if that were a reliable bit of information, I would never assume an Archangel couldn’t fight like they had eight arms with infinite reach. Fearsome would be an understatement. I’ve had the pleasure of meeting only one Archangel so far in my life, and the experience left me terrified of them. I knew that if one was legitimately coming after me, I would be dead. I would have no hope of fighting, at all.
I’m still not sure if there is a god or not at the top of the tier. I wouldn’t even know if that’d be capital g ‘God,’ or just a god or if it’s just the sense of good in the universe. It doesn’t really matter. We mortals just do our best to live our lives. That’s all that’s important.
What’s that? You want to hear about how I met an Archangel? All right. It’s not very long, and I never got the name of the Archangel…which to be honest probably would have burned my soul if she had told it to me. Anyway…
Apparently two Angels had been chasing after a fairly powerful demon. They briefly lost track of it and came across me, sans armor. They must have assumed because of my magical aura, that any significantly strong being can detect if I’m not hiding it, the demon had entered and possessed me.
With hardly a warning they attacked me, my senses blurring into high alert. I barely manage to pull my armor, weapon and shield up while dodging their attacks. A significant weakness in the transformation process, I know. You try pulling off a pose while dodging attacks! After trying to counterattack, I quickly come to the realization these are Angels, and I am in a world of trouble. They don’t tire easily, and if they were truly after me, two was more than enough. I’m defending myself to the best of my ability, which is difficult because their weapons are holy blades. I have to dodge instead of block or parry because these holy weapons are designed to cut through pretty much anything, and that list would include whatever my armaments are made out of. I’m cutting off limbs and bashing them in the face with my shield, just trying to get some room to breathe.
The problem is that the Angels would expect a demon to fight back, but if I had just let them attack me without defending myself, they probably wouldn’t have thought to check until after I was dead. Collateral damage is not exactly their primary concern. I would still be dead. So it’s hard to convince two Angels, who are in the middle of combat with you, that you’re not evil. Not that I knew the reason I was being assaulted, but my actions did not help my case.
I’ve just slashed through the wing of one of the Angels and can feel the blade of the other diving toward my now exposed back. I’m suddenly aware of another presence near me and I realize my body is immobile. I can feel the power radiating off this new being. It terrifies me so quickly I don’t realize the Angels have been frozen as well. Against my will my head turns and I look upon the face of a practically dressed woman. Her face is stern as she leans in toward my own. Inches away she asks for my name. I’m so scared of this woman, of the power she gives off that I panic and give her my birth name. Her eyes narrow at me, and if my entire body weren’t Time Locked, I would have emptied my bowels right then.
“Do not play games with me. Your true name. Now.” I’m panicking right now, so my voice squeaks as I give it to her.
She stares, without hyperbole, into my soul for a long time. Then my view changes and I can move my body. I’m standing in a neutral position, as are the Angels on the other side of the clearing we had been fighting in. The woman stands near them, and I can still feel the strength of her aura. The angels look confused for a moment before noticing her. They salute and it dawns on me that she is an Archangel. She speaks to the Angels.
“This one is not your quarry. His true name is still yet his own.”
Some background for this. If a Demon possesses a person, their true name can determine the case. If a person was taken over against their will, the Demon will not know their true name, and an Angel, and clearly an Archangel, can see through any deception. If a person willfully gave the Demon safe harbor, the true name may be known by the Demon, but it will sound false, tainted. In my case, I knew my true name, and though spoken as an adolescent, it rang with truth. I had no Demon inside of me.
To my horror, one of the Angels tried arguing with the Archangel. I’m not always a smart man, but you don’t argue with any being with that much obvious power and authority. It’s all ‘yes ma’am’s and ‘no ma’am’s with them. Respect. He got one word out, and I would have sworn I’d been time locked again if I hadn’t seen the motion that put him on his back in an instant. There was no argument after that.
The Angels disappeared, presumably to continue their chase of whatever quarry they had been after. She turns to me and with a slight smirk manages to terrify me all over again.
“You fight well. Perhaps one day you will join us.” And for some reason, I let my voice speak its idiotic mind.
“With all due respect, ma’am, that was an exceedingly creepy thing to say!” Honestly, I shouldn’t still be standing here to tell this story, but she gave a short bark of amusement. A great big, “Hah!” before turning and disappearing. I fell to my ass, and squatted there exhausted, pondering the luck my continued existence.

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